Shop Time w/T.W. Friends

These suits make up a lot of our overtime load. These are called propellant handlers ensemble(phe), used for fuel and oxidizer loading on satellites and other sections of rockets that require hypergolic propellant.
We build, repair and certify these suits among other things per Nasa's specific instructions.

Where you at Rahl?

 

Yeah, where you at @My Name is Rahl ?

I think it was @Gen1TacoLady who had an IRL connection- if it was, could you tell him to give us an indication he’s alive and well. And so we can give him crap about ghosting us for over 2 weeks.

Good morning all

Have a terrific Thursday.

 

Morning all have a great day

 

Good morning manly men + men with wrenches = Wrenchmen

Singer, songwriter in the country, folk, Americana & rock genres Lucinda Williams turns 69 today.

She is an interesting one with career spamming over 40 years with broad critical acclaim but almost no "popular" air play.
You have probably heard her work though, she wrote "Passionate Kisses" - a big hit for Mary Chapin Carpenter.

So go out and kiss someone today.

 

Good morning friends! Yawl have an awesome day

 

Curious why you would ask that. Everything I just said is public knowledge. We protect our proprietary information. There are thousands of photos of these suits online dating back to 1965. Google "nasa scape"..

 

To keep you entertained… here is my “hanger” to remind me of abject failure…





Wife’s cam gear - Early in marriage.
I built the replacement engine on the dining room table… have pics somewhere.

 

Past Tech with Rusty - forgotten muscle engines

The distinctive looking engine in this rod is a Buick "Fireball" V8, commonly called a "Nailhead Buick" due to the unusual arrangement and small size of the valves. Built from 1953-66 with displacements ranging from 322 to 425 cubic inches the Nailhead had quite advance airflow design for the time.

These engines were never intended for high rpm, they were designed to smoothly, quietly and efficiently produce tremendous amounts of low and mid range torque.

Notice the vertical valve, the unusual "underhand" way the push rod operates the rocker arm and the tidy pentroof combustion chamber with a center mounted spark plug, very similar to modern engines.




Notice the Buick has an "air gap" style intake manifold like many modern engines, this keeps the incoming air/fuel cooler and denser for more power - no plastic manifolds in the 1950's though.

The right side shows the intake path, the left show exhaust.
Notice how the smooth path of the intake runner is a constant size over the entire length.

Again the engineers at Buick knew what they were doing, they had been refining their previous straight 8 engines for 22 years to be smooth, quiet pullers.
These were a strong block too, notice how the skirt is well below the crankshaft centerline, a Chev has no skirt for comparison.



Below is a similar displacement Ford FE V8 from about the same era (1958-76) to compare. The FE is a pretty typical layout of the engines of the day - other than Buick.

The photo is the reverse of the Buick above, intake is on the left here.
Notice the intake path is neither as straight nor the constant size of the Buick.
The FE is a deep skirt block like the Buick.



The beautiful & distinctive Nailhead in natural habitat. Notice the spark plugs are hidden under the side cover.

 

That tells you how good the mask works.

 

Oof!

 

Morning

 

Good morning Shane and crew. Adventures in plumbing for me today, I need to replace the pop-up drain in the bathtub. The wife bubble bath drained out on her last night, must be fixed today.

Update on this, all working now. I checked a post on my phone with an IG link, the link was displaying like it should. Closed the browser window on my iPad, opened it back up and the link displayed there too

That’s a serious totally encapsulated hazmat suit. It also looks like a space suit which makes it really cool.

 

Time to bundle up and clear some snow. It's the second snowfall of any notable amount this year, and both times we've gotten 10 -12" in 24 hours or less. It's blizzard or blah here this year, I prefer a more even keel.

 

Good morning everyone, stay safe and have a great and blessed day.

 

Sorry to disappoint, but I have the @Delta09 IRL connection cause we're local. But I'd be happy to join in the endless tagging if that helps.

@My Name is Rahl

 

Ope!

 

When me and my brother were much younger, I once convinced him for like 8 months that chicken nuggets were made out of baby chickens. He wouldn't touch em!

 

Just buy a roll of grip tape and wrap the end before you put it on.

 

Hard to feel the context through the intrawebz, all good. We take security very seriously, and we have to because groups have tried to reverse engineer the technology before. You can rent the suit for the day but it comes home with us.

 

That’s more better.